


The Art of Reading (Between the Lines)

by Nike_SGA



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Canon, Bickering, Enemies to...Slightly Less Enemies?, F/F, Hecate is Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells, Hecate is terrible at flirting, No Confinement, Pippa Just Wants Peace and Quiet, Self-Indulgent Letter Writing, Then fluff, Useless Lesbians, i do not think that word means what you think it means
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-18
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:01:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,669
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24081739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nike_SGA/pseuds/Nike_SGA
Summary: “Then why’s she got it in for you so badly?” Avery asked.Pippa threw her hands up in exasperation. “Hell if I know! She just seems dead set against literally everything that I say!”***Pippa and Hecate have never actually met, but they maintain a correspondence through the letters page of a popular witching magazine. Eventually, someone was going to put them in the same room together. Think 'You've Got Mail', but they hate each other in the e-mails as well.
Relationships: Hardbroom/Pentangle (Worst Witch)
Comments: 117
Kudos: 156





	1. The Letters

**Author's Note:**

> Me: I will never post another WiP  
> Also Me: Look over there!
> 
> I know I should be focusing on finishing certain other works, but this idea has been floating around for a while, and I decided to get it down while I could. Fortunately, it is all but finished, so it won't languish in update limbo. Promise. No, my fingers aren't crossed behind my back, thankyouverymuch.
> 
> Full credit for the character of Avery Heartsong goes to the wonderful thispapermoon (@always-la-belle-epoque) who created a deputy for Pentangle's so perfect that I now can't imagine any other.

_Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #83 _

_Dear Madam,_

_I read with great interest your recent article by Lavinia Crochet on the expansion of Chant work to areas of witchcraft more traditionally focused on a solely materials-based process. As a long-term admirer of Miss Crochet’s work, I was encouraged to see her advocating for progress on this subject, as it is something I myself feel passionately about and have been trialling in my own curriculum at Pentangle’s Academy. I would like to congratulate Witch Way and its contributors on their readiness to embrace more modern concepts of our craft, as we face this current crisis in British witchery together._

_Yours faithfully,_

_P. Pentangle._

**Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #84**

**Dear Madam,**

**Quite contrary to Miss Pentangle’s opinion, I was more than a little disturbed at your recent article ‘Swap Your Sage for Singing!’ (a frivolous title not at all indicative of the nuance required in this particular area of study.) Being myself heavily involved in the teaching of one such ‘solely materials-based process’, as Miss Pentangle derides, I have concerns both several and severe as to the wisdom of perpetrating the idea that these centuries old methods are somehow to be found wanting when they have served our community perfectly well since the early formation of witchcraft in Great Britain. I would strongly dissuade Witch Way and its readers from treating Miss Crochet’s article as anything other than it is - unreviewed conjecture, not fit for inclusion in our current training programmes for young witches everywhere.**

**Yours faithfully,**

**H. Hardbroom.**

_Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #85 _

_Dear Madam,_

_I will admit to being somewhat surprised by the vehemence of reader H. Hardbroom’s reaction to your article exploring the application of Chanting to other areas of witchcraft. I am of course aware, both as a contemporary educator and through our previous correspondence, of Miss Hardbroom’s considerable reputation in the field of Potions, and can only assume that her aversion to the article is borne of an uncertainty regarding including Chanting components in traditional Potions work. I would like to assure Miss Hardbroom that I am not suggesting the complete abandoning of time-honoured traditions regarding (in particular) the ceremonial and social aspect involved in brewing and creating cauldron-crafted Potions of all different varieties, rather I am proposing that - in this time where we are seeing a decline in national witchery at all levels - it would be prudent to work together to explore methods to drive the craft forwards into the 21st century._

_Yours Faithfully,_

_P. Pentangle._

**Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #86**

**Dear Madam,**

**I am grateful to Miss Pentangle for her clarification in your previous issue, although it was both unwarranted and unnecessary, as I understand her intentions quite clearly. The notion of replacing ingredients which have been tested and specifically cultivated over the course of hundreds of years - and of which the combination into viable Potions is an art most delicately and thoroughly studied at all witching levels - with a purely vocal component is both unworkable and, in my humble opinion, extremely dangerous. The current issues in British witchcraft, of which Miss Pentangle makes such ready mention, would indicate that now is precisely the wrong time to be abandoning those principles of our craft which have seen our community thrive through the ages.**

**Yours faithfully,**

**H. Hardbroom.**

_Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #87 _

_I must disagree with Miss Hardbroom that now is not the time for investigating these new applications in spellcasting and witchcraft. Surely, given the marked downturn in magic-users currently being recorded (as per the Practitioners Census 2014), there can be no better moment to investigate and trial methods which streamline and simplify certain processes, and require significantly fewer external resources than the much-vaunted ‘usual way of doing things’? Certainly at Pentangle’s, we have found adopting more modern methods has cut-down our expenditure in terms of wasted ingredients and damaged equipment._

_Yours,_

_P. Pentangle._

**Letters to the Editor**  
**Witch Way Magazine**  
**Issue #88**

**Dear Madam,**

**I am sorry to hear that Pentangle’s finances are under strain in such a fashion that they cannot appropriately outfit their Potions stores and laboratories. Might I suggest to Miss Pentangle that if she is seeking a simpler process, she would be best closing her privately-funded vanity-project of a ‘magical academy’, and seeking employment in one of the many fine witchling nurseries in her area. I understand small children enjoy singing nonsense,**

**Faithfully,**

**H. Hardbroom.**

***

“That _cow!_ ” 

Pippa Pentangle launched this month’s copy of ‘Witch Way’ magazine across the room in a flutter of pages, watching with some satisfaction as it hit the wall with a solid _thump_ and dropped limply to the floor. Her deputy, Avery Heartsong, watched the publication’s flight across the room mildly, barely raising her eyebrows, and set her pen down on the pile of student records she’d been annotating.

“Oh dear. What’s she written now?”

Pippa folded her arms and fumed silently, glaring furiously at the ceiling of her office, too angry to speak. Her deputy sighed, and got up from the low couch she’d been seated on to retrieve the offending magazine and flick through the pages to the Letters section, where she knew the source of Pippa’s ire would be easily identified in black and white print. She scanned the page in a few seconds, and winced at what she read.

“Ouch.”

“ _Vanity-project_. How dare she?!” Pippa seethed, uncrossing her arms so she could grip the edge of her elegant oak desk, perfectly manicured nails biting into the wood almost hard enough to leave marks. “Like _I’m_ the one with the vanity problem, here!”

“It does seem a little...excessive.”

“And calling into question _our_ funding problems. _Ours_! When that decrepit old castle she teaches in is barely held together by worn-out charms, desperation, and luck!”

Her deputy gave her a slightly disapproving look. “That’s not entirely fair on Ada Cackle, now, is it?” But Pippa was in no mood to retain the moral high-ground, not when a good rant felt a hell of a lot better, and she pouted moodily in the other witch’s direction.

“It’s true though! And I don’t have a problem with Ada Cackle! She’s not the one trying to show me up at every available opportunity!”

Avery rolled the magazine in her hands and settled herself gracefully into a visitor’s chair on the opposite side of Pippa’s desk. “How many times is this now?”

Pippa blew out a breath and shrugged sullenly as she thought. “Oh, I don’t know. Last time it was a letter deriding me for suggesting more schools should look at offering co-ed options. The time before that, it was because I had written in asking for some feedback about introducing Ordinary activities into the school syllabus. As _optionals_. And then there was the time I commented about the success of using a throat-soothing potion and essence of nightingale-feather together to improve the vocal quality of some chants - a use _she_ suggested in one of her own articles - and I swear she changed her position just to spite me! Said it was dangerous to muck about with medical potions when you didn’t have ‘expert knowledge’ in that field! As if I don’t know where I am with a _basic cough syrup_!”

Pippa was aware her voice had risen throughout her diatribe, and she could bite her tongue at the indignant little squeak it adopted as she reached the end of her sentence. She’d always wished she could have one of those sonorous voices that lended weight to whatever the speaker was saying, instead of one that tended to fly up at the end and make her sound like a disgruntled hamster. One that remained icy and calm and disguised its irritation, rather than announced it for everyone a mile round to hear. She’d bet Hecate bloody Hardbroom had one of those voices. It’d be just her luck. She could just imagine her, sitting straight-backed at her own desk, holding her most recent letter in her hand as she waited for the ink to dry, drily testing out the resonance of phrases like ‘under strain’ and ‘privately-funded’. Well, she could sort of imagine it; she wasn’t entirely sure what Hecate Hardbroom looked like. 

“Have you ever even met this woman?” Avery asked, coincidentally brushing against her own thoughts as Pippa brooded in her chair.

“Nope.”

“Then why’s she got it in for you so badly?”

Pippa threw her hands up in exasperation. “Hell if I know! She just seems dead set against literally everything that I say!”

And that’s the truth: she’d never actually crossed paths with Hecate Hardbroom, not in person at least. She knew her by reputation, of course - everyone did - and she had her books, and had read her articles. Some of the Potions work in Pentangle’s own curriculum was set by OFWITCH standards that Miss Hardbroom had developed over the course of her teaching career. Pippa had nothing but respect for her clear depth of knowledge in the field and study of Potions. 

On a purely personal level, Pippa kind of hated her.

It had started out innocuously enough, issue upon issue ago, when Pippa had cheerfully penned a letter to ‘Witch Way’ in the run up to one October announcing that, alongside their standard Samhain celebrations, her lower school was going to work together to have a Non-Magical ‘Hallowe’en Party’, and explore the way the Ordinary world had adopted and adapted their traditions throughout the centuries. She had viewed it as a bit of fun, and a nice piece of cross-cultural education for her students, many of whom had an interest in the operatings of the world outside their community. As far as Hecate Hardbroom was concerned, she might as well have written that she planned to take her pupils up to the highest tower in the school and drop them off the edge one by one, just to see what would happen. Pippa could still remember her response, published in the next month’s issue, full of words like ‘misguided’ and ‘ludicrous’ and ‘dangerous’. Miss Hardbroom loved to call her ‘dangerous’.

Perhaps that’s the crux of it, she thought. Some witches were so terrified of discovery by the outside world that they were willing to do anything to freeze their way of life as it was right now - the way it had been since the Middle Ages. Pippa could still remember the day the spell that made Magical-kind permanently invisible to Ordinaries was lifted by direct order of the Magic Council; the wailing and gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands, and warnings of armageddon coming over the horizon on valkyries’ wings.

It hadn’t, of course. Lifting the spell had been a sensible and forward-thinking step in preserving the country’s diminishing magic reserves, and all it really meant was that they had to be a bit more careful how they dressed when they were out-and-about for a while. Then there had been all that fuss with Jolanne Rowanoak a few years ago, when she left her witching village and went off and married an Ordinary, and wrote those books that some claimed would attract unwelcome attention to all of them - but the Magic Council had quite sensibly decided to use them as a source of plausible deniability instead, as long as Rowanoak changed her name to something more Ordinary and fudged a few of the details. She smiles as she remembers an excited mirror-call from her Dad, who had been stopped at the shops by a group of local tweens so they could take their picture with him. He’d been very curious to know what ‘cos-player’ meant.

Witches like Hecate Hardbroom liked to get up in arms about the smallest changes in Magical society, whether they served the common good or not. She’d faced hordes of them when she had first announced her intentions to open Pentangle’s Academy for Magic, and declared that her school would be a beacon of Modern Magical Practice: a place where young witches (and, yes, wizards) could come and learn the techniques that were being developed all over the world to restore the falling numbers of magical practitioners being produced these days. Oh, there had been protests and petitions and sign-waving, and she’d been called all-sorts - a jumped-up modernist, a craft-traitor, an overambitious airhead, a _progressive_ \- but she had persevered and now had run one of the most successful schools in the country for nearing on a decade. The day Pentangle’s opened had been the proudest of her life, and teaching staff from all over had flocked to her Open Day to marvel at her facilities and congratulate her on her enrollment numbers. Even Ada Cackle, who had inherited one of the most staunchly traditional academies out there and wasn’t exactly known for risky scholastic strategy, had shook her hand and beamed and wished her luck. Pippa might even have believed she was open to new ideas of modern witching herself, if she hadn’t turned around less than a month later and appointed surely the most conservative witch in the British Isles (if not existence) as her new Deputy Head. That had been a surprise all round - Hardbroom was known for being downright reclusive: her books carried no author’s photograph, and she never spoke publicly about her work. Up until her appointment at Cackle’s, she had taught exclusively at a small, eye-wateringly elite private training academy for witches in the south-east.

Hecate Hardbroom had never deigned to set foot in Pentangle’s Academy, and honestly, Pippa was quite alright with that.

“What are you going to do?”

Pippa snapped out of her aggrieved reverie with a blink, and looked across to Avery’s calm and carefully neutral face. 

“Do?”

“Are you going to reply?”

“What’s the point?” Pippa shrugged her shoulders grouchily, and reached over to take the magazine from Avery’s smooth hand. “We’ll just get stuck in a vicious circle.”

“Good plan,” Avery nodded her dark head and rose, returning briefly to the couch to rescue her files and tuck them under her arm before she crossed over to Pippa’s office door and opened it with her free hand. “Be the bigger person.”

“Bigger person,” Pippa parroted, as her deputy departed, and she meant to, she really did. She even lasted a whole seven minutes before picking up her pen.

_“Dear Madam…”_


	2. The Invite

_Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #89 _

_Dear Madam,_

_May I allay my esteemed colleague H. Hardbroom’s concerns about the funding of Pentangle’s, and assure her that our cutting-edge research has allowed us to secure grants from several sectors in order to provide our staff and pupils with equipment and resources that are - unlike in some institutions - all from this particular century. Pentangle’s is, and will continue to be, one of the top performing institutions for Magical study in the country, and I look forward to another successful year for our staff and students._

_Yours,_

_P.Pentangle._

**Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #90**

**Dear Madam,**

**I am sure as the academic year draws to a close, it will not have escaped the notice of our colleagues in the sector that Cackle’s Academy has once again come top of the board in ten out of fourteen of the Key Performance Indicators required by OFWITCH,** **with attainment rates well above the national averages in all categories. Our results for Potions - taught, I feel obligated to reiterate, entirely in the traditional manner - are particularly notable, as are those for Spell Science, Witchory and Broomstick Proficiency. May I extend congratulations to Pentangle’s Academy, who, for all their modern ‘equipment and resources’, have placed first narrowly in Chanting. I now understand why Miss Pentangle is so determined to push the subject into other areas, where it is, frankly, surplus to requirements.**

**Yours faithfully,**

**H. Harbroom.**

“You were supposed to be taking the high road,” Avery accused, as she strolled into Pippa’s office brandishing the latest issue of ‘WItch Way’ like a weapon.

“I swerved,” Pippa responded wryly, as Avery shook her head and dropped onto the couch beside her employer, swatting her arm lightly with the magazine. 

“Well, I was annoyed,” Pippa defended, folding the piece of paper in her hands before Avery could get a good look at it. The other witch wasn’t fooled for a millisecond.

“What are you writing?”

“Nothing.”

“Give it to me.”

“No.”

“ _Pippa_.”

“Fine.”

_“‘_ Dear Madam,’” Avery read aloud, “‘on the subject of academic performance this year, I feel it necessary to point out…’ Do you?”

“Do I what?”

“‘Feel it necessary’? Honestly, Pip, can’t you just leave it?”

“She disparaged our school!”

“People disparage our school all the time,” Avery said, and held a hand up to stop Pippa before she pointed out that this wasn’t the positive reassurance Avery apparently intended it to be. 

“And you never take it this personally, is my point. You’ve always managed to laugh it off, or turn around and prove them wrong. Why are you getting so caught up in this?”

“I don’t know,” Pippa frowned. Why did it bother her so much? Avery was right; ordinarily she would stew for a day or two, call her opponent a few carefully chosen names in the privacy of her office, take a deep breath, and move on. But something about this epistolary quarrel between herself and Hecate Hardbroom was making it impossible for her to let it go.

“I just- she doesn’t even _know_ me.”

“So? You’ve never needed everyone to like you before.”

“I couldn’t care less if she likes me!”

Avery raised the paper once again. “‘I understand that Miss Hardbroom, like many witches intractably set in their ways, may have misread my desire to modernise certain aspects of the craft as threatening their particular specialisations, which is decidedly not the case-’”

Pippa crossed her arms sullenly. “I’m just saying she’s wrong.”

“Of course she’s wrong,” Avery soothed. “And I’m just saying, don’t engage with it. You said it yourself: you’ll just argue round in circles and give yourself a headache.” 

Pippa scowled, but there was no real ire in the expression. She knew her deputy was right - she’d sent her last letter off a month ago and it had niggled at the back of her mind ever since, as she tried to predict what her opponent might say in response. Her heart had hammered this morning when the magazine arrived, and she flicked quickly through the pages to the letters section, all ready to flood her system with hot indignation at whatever she found there. It was a pointless distraction that was doing her no good. She might as well be arguing with strangers on the Ordinary internet.

“Fine. _Fine,_ ” she announced, taking the half-finished letter from Avery and aiming it at the wastepaper basket. The scrunched up ball of paper flew wide, but a nudge from her magic deposited it safely with the rest of the rubbish. 

“Promise me you’re not going to respond.”

“I promise.”

The doubtful look Avery aimed at her verged on insubordinate, but finally she pursed her lips together, hummed, and patted Pippa on the hand. “Come on. It’s nearly lunchtime.”

When the next month’s issue of ‘Witch Way’ landed on her desk, she took her time to peruse it leisurely, and skimmed over the conflict-free letters section with a feeling of satisfaction and just a little moral superiority. She marked a few articles that might be interesting to other members of her staff, and left it on the staff-room coffee table, and tried not to wonder what Hecate Hardbroom’s reaction would be when she opened her own copy, and found her shot unparried. Maybe she’d be put-out; offended that Pippa hadn’t taken the time out of her busy schedule to favour her with a response. Or perhaps she’d be smug, and think she’d won, and Pippa had nothing to fire back at her. Well, that was fine; she could think whatever she wanted. It didn’t bother Pippa one bit. 

The last weeks of the school year trundled to a close, and she didn’t think about Hecate Hardbroom when the next ‘Witch Way’ dropped through the letter box of her small house near Faversham, the first Friday after the end of term; she didn’t think about her for the six long, sunny weeks of summer; nor when she returned to Pentangle’s to prepare for the start of the new year. She didn’t think about her at all (well, not much) until she was lazily thumbing through issue ninety-three, and her untempered shriek of fury brought Avery Heartsong to her office in a puff of red smoke, hair half-done and eyes wide with alarm. She took one look at Pippa’s flushed face and outraged expression and delicately removed the magazine from her hands. 

**Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #93**

**I read with interest your excellent article last issue on the sartorial conundrum facing witches in modern society, as certain aspects of our lives necessitate an intermingling of Magical and Non-Magical communities in some areas of recreation and work. I thought the suggestions made by Miss Modiste both eminently sensible and practical: black should always be our** **_premiere_ ** **choice, as both an homage to our established heritage and an expression of good taste. The judicious witch should never be caught, for example, in pink.**

**Yours faithfully.**

**Hecate Hardbroom**

“That’s it!” Pippa exclaimed, throwing her hands up in the air. “That’s the last straw!”

“What are you going to do?” Avery was almost hesitant to ask, as she placed the issue down between them and finished securing her elegant up-do with a twist of her fingers. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Pippa replied, stalking around the desk, and when she looked up at her deputy her eyes were wild and faintly feral, “but I do know one thing. If Hecate Hardbroom wants a war… she’s got one.”

***

_Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #94 _

_Dear Madam,_

_I cannot claim to be at all shocked by Miss Hardbroom’s somewhat limited view on what constitutes appropriate attire for the modern witch; a topic which despite my careful perusal does not appear to be directly addressed in the latest copy of the Witches’ Code…_

**Issue #95**

**Dear Madam,**

**I will confess I am encouraged to hear Miss Pentangle cite the Witches’ Code as a source of guidance in her latest correspondence, as signs had pointed to her institution abandoning the directive entirely…**

_Issue #96_

_Dear Madam,_

_In terms of following the rules prescribed by the Magical Council, I can assure Miss Hardbroom that Pentangle’s has always striven…_

**Issue #97**

**Dear Madam,**

**I am unsure precisely where Miss Pentangle inferred insult to her choice of familiar in my previous letter, but allow me to elucidate…**

_Issue #98_

_Dear Madam…_

**Issue #99**

**Dear Madam…**

  
  


***

*BEEPbeep*

Pippa reached distractedly for her maglet, as she bared her teeth at her nemesis’ latest letter to ‘Witch Way’. Miss Hardbroom was loftily extolling the virtues of planting one’s own ingredient gardens - the grounds at Cackle’s encompassed significantly more area than the lawns of Pentangle’s, meaning Pippa had to order most of her products in, and boy, did Hecate Hardbroom know it - and her eyes were scanning the print for the third or fourth time when she hit the ‘answer’ button, fully expecting Avery on the other end of the line. 

“Yeah?”

“Hi, Pippa!”

“Charity!” Charity Crestwell, editor in chief of ‘Witch Way’, beamed up at her from her screen, as Pippa scrambled to readjust her focus. “This is a surprise!”

“How are you?” the other woman asked, cheerfully. “Please Merlin, tell me you don’t have a pen in your hand.”

“A pen?”

“In case you’re writing me another sodding letter,” Charity’s laugh sounded tinnily from the maglet speakers, and Pippa felt the tips of her ears heat up.

“Ah, yes. About that-”

“Honestly, it’s become the highlight of the edition in our offices. Every month Susanna from the mailroom comes charging up waving an envelope and everyone gathers around my desk for the great unveiling.”

Pippa was properly blushing now. Somehow, in the midst of her war of words with Hecate, she’d forgotten that their squabble was being circulated to just about every witch in the country. She took a moment to thank the Morrigan that her mother wasn’t a subscriber. She’d be mortified.

“Sorry, Charity. I didn’t mean to turn your letters page into a battleground.”

“That’s alright,” Charity replied, waving off her apology breezily, “like I said, it’s kept us entertained. It’s cheaper than publishing a serial.” The other witch laughed again, but Pippa was thoroughly abashed, and Charity must have seen it, because she smoothly changed the subject.

“Anyway, I won’t keep you, but do I have a proposition for you. I’d like to get you out of our letters page, and onto our cover.”

“Your cover?” Pippa repeated, startled.

“Our cover,” Charity confirmed, smiling. “You know it’s our one hundredth issue next month?”

“Oh. Yes. I suppose.” 

“Well, we’ve got most of the issue pulled together already, but I’d like to do a couple of featurettes if you know what I mean. Pull in a few high-profile witches from different areas who support the magazine, stick them all on the cover together, ask them a few questions and the like. Show the scope of our readership. I’d really love to have you onboard. I’ve already got Amanda Honeydew, and Jadu Wali, and Esper Vespertilio. You’d be a coup, too: headmistress of the first Modern Magical Academy. What d’you think?”

“It-”

“It’d only take a day, too. Just pop up to our offices in London, wear whatever you like - you know, 'formal casual' sort of thing - get a few pictures with the rest of the girls, and that’s the lot.”

“When? I-”

“Next week? Saturday? Won’t even ask you for a school day.”

“Sure,” Pippa relented, sitting back in her chair and blowing a loose strand of hair out of her eyes. “Sounds great.” The other woman beamed and scribbled something down on a pad somewhere off to the side, out of Pippa’s eyeline.

“Fabulous. You’re an absolute angel. I’ll send you all the details...oh!” Charity leaned towards the screen as if a thought had only just occurred to her (and not, as Pippa suspected, as if she’d played Pippa like a cheap fiddle through this whole conversation), “and guess who else is going to be there!”

Pippa went cold. “Charity-”

“I’m sure you’ll get along famously once you’re in the same room. Thanks again, lovely; you’re a gem. Bye!” The screen went unceremoniously black, and Pippa stared at it for a long, quiet minute, unsure whether she should laugh or cry.

What on earth had she just agreed to?


	3. The Studio

Pippa swung open the heavy glass door to the building which housed the offices of ‘Witch Way’, and half a dozen other Magical publications, checking her watch for the time. She was about ten minutes early, which in the world of photoshoots she imagined made her just about on time. She checked her broom at reception, collected her visitor's pass, and stepped delightedly into the lift, pressing the button for her floor. She felt a subtle lurch as the silver box headed upwards, and she held onto the railing that ran around the perimeter of the little room. She’d taken off on a broomstick a thousand times, of course, but she’d never travelled vertically in this manner before. She stepped out as the lift slid to a halt and the doors opened on the foyer of ‘Witch Way’ magazine, and was met by an enthusiastic brunette wielding a clipboard, who shook her hand vigorously. 

“You must be Pippa Pentangle! Lovely to meet you! Oh,” she dropped Pippa’s hand and raised her own to her forehead, palm outwards. “Sorry, _well met_. I’m Theodora. I’ll take you through.” She swept off, and Pippa hurried behind her, casting an impressed eye around the tastefully modern offices, festooned with portrait photography of glamorous witches from up and down the country. She was hustled into a room containing a white backdrop, an impressive lighting set-up and six other witches who were currently being talked at by Charity Crestwell.

“...can’t imagine it’ll take more than a couple of hours, once everyone’s here. Ah! Pippa!” Charity came over to pull Pippa into a one-armed embrace that simultaneously served to wheel her in the direction of the room’s other occupants. “Everyone, this is Pippa Pentangle. Pippa, this is Jadu Wali,” Pippa bowed to the tall, muscular Witch Ball captain; “Bronwyn Blackcat; Sabina Spellbinder; Dr. Josie Foster - you know the Foster’s Effect of course; the extraordinary Esper Vespertilio; and, er, Miss Hecate Hardbroom.”

Pippa froze on the upswing of her bow to Esper Vespertilio (a sprightly, wrinkly woman in elaborate green and gold robes) and turned slowly on the spot to where a comfortable chaise bore a stiffly upright figure. “Miss Pentangle,” it drawled, implacably.

Hecate Hardbroom was younger than Pippa had expected, if she were being completely honest. In every other way, she was precisely as she had imagined, as she unfolded herself from her seat and stood to dip low into a formal bow. She was tall and thin and pale, with sharp, angular features, a jutting jaw-line, and raven black hair pulled back into a bun so neat and tight that it gave Pippa a headache just to look at it. As she raised her head, Pippa saw she had an aquiline nose, a narrow mouth, and the deepest, darkest brown eyes Pippa had ever gazed into. “A pleasure to meet you, at last,” her cool, imperious voice declared, as Pippa parted her lips wordlessly, at a loss on how to respond without devolving into a conniption.

_A pleasure to meet her?!_ Pippa’s hands trembled as she balled them into fists at her side and returned the bow brittly, without even raising her palm in traditional salute. “Miss Hardbroom,” she gritted out, watching as the other witch’s eyes narrowed at her terse frame. “It’s been a long time coming.”

Pippa had hoped, rather futilely she realised now, that she would arrive in advance of Miss Hardbroom, and have time to introduce herself to the other witches, sit down after her long flight, and have a cup of tea to settle her nerves before she was brought face to face with the woman with whom she had maintained such a fraught correspondence over the past couple of years. Instead, she attempted to marshal herself, breathing in through her nose and working her jaw to loosen the clenching of her teeth. She took another opportunity to cast her eyes over Hecate Hardbroom, taking in the details she'd missed in her initial discomfited state. Miss Hardbroom seemed the walking definition of the word ‘fastidious’: her fingers were long and elegant and tipped with manicured nails, perfectly polished. Her dress was impeccably tailored and fell in sharp lines around her body, with a high collar and long sleeves that buttoned at her slender wrists, a thick brocade that looked near impossible to walk in, never mind how she had sat down. Pippa couldn’t see her feet, but she suspected heels from the way she carried herself, and around her neck there was a long chain supporting an old-fashioned pocketwatch, which ticked almost imperceptibly on the edge of Pippa’s hearing. Her lipstick was a dark, cold purple. She was dressed, of course, entirely in black. When Pippa had been deciding what to wear for today, Hecate’s letter about ‘ _sartorial choices’_ had featured heavily in her mind, and she’d gone for the pinkest, patterned-est, sparkliest thing she could find. And in her wardrobe, that accounted for quite a lot. As she unfastened her travelling cloak from around her shoulders, she saw Miss Hardbroom’s eyes widen, presumably in disapprobation.

“Oh, don’t you look lovely!” an elderly voice trilled behind her, and Pippa turned to see Esper Vespertilio looking her up and down with approval, hands clasped together before her. “I did try to convince Hecate to wear something rather brighter for today, but she would not be persuaded.”

“I don’t believe I _have_ anything ‘brighter’,” the witch replied with a roll of her eyes. 

“I’m sure,” Pippa’s voice was clipped, as she pointedly looked Miss Hardbroom up and down, “We’re all very aware of your opinions on _suitable witching attire_.” The response was a raised eyebrow, and they were saved from whatever Hecate was going to say next by a commotion over by the entrance. Amanda Honeydew, former lead singer of The Spell Girls and solo pop sensation, had arrived with her entourage, and Charity rushed over to greet her enthusiastically as Amanda whipped off her sunglasses and smiled her million-megawatt smile. An assistant immediately began wrangling with Charity as others rushed to fetch water and argue with the photographer, and Amanda smoothed down the skirt of her white couture gown and offered a little wave to the rest of the assembled witches. If Pippa had thought that Hecate Hardbroom had looked at her disapprovingly, it was nothing compared to the withering glare she aimed at the little party in the doorway.

“For Merlin’s sake,” Pippa heard her mutter, sotto voce, “have you ever seen anything so ridiculous.” Pippa was startled to realise Hecate was addressing her.

“I’m sure you find all witches not chained to their cauldron in a black sackcloth and pointy hat ‘ridiculous’,” she bit out, fiddling with one of her own sleeves. Hecate looked at her in some surprise, and seemed about to say something when Charity clapped her hands together and said “Right! We’re about ready to go; I’ll just get someone from hair and makeup to do a quick check over all of you, and we’ll take a couple of test shots to check the lighting, et. cetera,” and whatever Hecate had been about to reply was lost in the sudden bustle of women being poked and prodded in every direction by the ‘Witch Way’ styling team. A young redhead materialised directly in front of Pippa and chattered gaily at her, complementing her dress while wiggling her fingers in a way that caused Pippa to feel a slight shifting of her hair, a tiny adjustment of her makeup. Over her shoulder, she saw a similarly perky girl indicate towards Hecate’s hair, and heard the severe witch snap, “Under absolutely _no_ circumstances.”

Once they had been interfered with to the styling team’s satisfaction - and Amanda Honeydew’s personal makeup and hair artist had seen off any attempt to encroach on her client with a snarl - the photographer corralled them all in front of the background and starts to arrange them like mannequins in a shop window. Amanda was sprawled elegantly on the floor at the front, the voluminous folds of her dress pooling around her, while Esper Vespitilio and Dr. Foster were seated on a sleek black leather sofa behind her. Sabina Spellbinder, flying goggles atop her curly head, perched on the back of it, leaving Pippa, Hecate, Bronwyn and Jadu to stand in a row at the very back. Despite trying her best to end up with either the Witch Ball player or the ‘Witchcraft of the Year’ organiser between them, the photographer shuffled them around so that she and Hecate ended up standing together in the middle. She shot a cross frown at Charity, who shrugged unapologetically. The next few minutes were the flashing of soft-boxes and the murmurs of the photographer, while the witches shifted and giggled and whispered to each other about how uncomfortable they all were in front of a camera (excepting Amanda Honeydew, naturally.) She and Hecate, on the other hand, stood in strained silence. Pippa refused to even glance her way.

“Miss Pentangle? If you and Miss Hardbroom could just-” the photographer made a gesture with her hands to indicate that they should stand closer together and Pippa had to stop herself from huffing in frustration even as she complied. She shuffled imperceptibly to her right, and heard her neighbour’s low and rather affronted voice say, “It’s alright, Miss Pentangle. I don’t bite.”

“I think we both know that not to be the case, Miss Hardbroom,” Pippa replied primly, and ignored the snort of laughter that issued from Miss Spellbinder. The photographer called for their attention, and the photoshoot proper finally began, necessitating an end to all conversation.

Pippa - although not used to being photographed in quite such a formal setting - was nonetheless aware that she was naturally rather photogenic, so she quickly relaxed in the rhythm of the shoot: moving when the photographer asked her to, changing her expression, adjusting her hair or her hands. Hecate, on the other hand, was evidently as comfortable in front of a camera as she would be in front of a firing squad, and Pippa lost count of the number of times she had to be told to relax, or smile, or uncross her arms. The photographer eventually settled for a perfectly neutral expression from Hecate, as it was obviously as close to a smile as she was going to achieve. At one point, as the photographer was setting up yet another shot, Esper Vespertilio leaned back and put a hand on Miss Hardbroom’s arm, and offered her a warm, twinkling gaze. 

“I can hear you overthinking this, Hecate.”

“You know this isn’t my thing, Gwen,” she responded gently, and Pippa was surprised by the softness of her manner towards the old woman. She wouldn’t have thought it possible for Hecate Hardbroom to be _soft_.

“Just relax, dear. Take a leaf out of Miss Pentangle’s book. She looks like she’s enjoying herself.” Esper turned towards Pippa and gave her a wink as she dropped her hand.

“I’m sure Miss Pentangle has had rather more cause to have her photograph taken in the course of her life than I,” Hecate intoned drily, and Pippa felt hot ire flush across her chest, turning her décolletage a splotchy, unphotogenic red.

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?” she demanded in a hiss, not even caring as every head in the room swivelled towards her. Hecate Hardbroom looked quite taken aback. _Of course she does,_ Pippa thought, angrily, _she’s used to having a month between dishing it out and then having to take it._ Maybe Hardbroom had thought she wouldn’t make a scene.

“I-”

“Everything alright, Pip?” Charity called, a note of worry in her voice, as Amanda Honeydew pushed herself up on her hands and eagerly watched the unexpected entertainment.

“Fine,” Pippa turned her back on Hecate and asked, “Do you mind if I just step off for some water?” 

As she poured herself a paper cup-ful from the trestle table against the wall, Pippa tried her best to ignore the stares and whispers from her compatriots. A quick glance back showed Jadu, Bronwyn and Sabina in conversation, while Amanda Honeydew chatted animatedly to Josie Foster. Hecate Hardbroom had crouched down - Pippa wasn't sure how, in her ridiculous dress - and leant over the couch to hold a whispered conference with Esper Vespertilio, who was giving her the sort of look Pippa remembered mostly clearly on her mother’s face every time she tracked mud into the kitchen as a child. Hecate was shaking her head determindley; she glanced up, and Pippa averted her gaze as she sipped at the cold water and felt it cool the burning in her chest. Charity glided over and put a hand on her shoulder. “Alright?”

“Yep,” Pippa muttered, starting to feel embarrassed at the fuss.

“What did she say?”

“Oh, nothing, really,” Pippa responded, and she supposed it had been nothing really, but she was sure it had been meant to insult in some, subtle way. She handed the empty cup off to one of the young assistants, and made her way back over to the studio set-up.

“Sorry,” she exclaimed with a brightness she didn’t feel. “Got a bit overheated.” Everyone else waved off her apology and murmured their understanding. Hecate straightened up and resumed her lock-limbed stance, eyes firmly forward on Charity and the photographer. The rest of the time passed blessedly quickly, and before Pippa knew it, the photographer was congratulating them all and telling them to take some time. “Then we’ll just get a few headshots for your individual blurbs, and then I’ll release you all back into the wild,” she exclaimed happily, and motioned for Bronwyn Blackcat to take up her position again.

Pippa helped herself to a glazed pastry off the table, and accepted a cup of tea proffered by one of the ubiquitous assistants, and sighed. Jadu Wali approached her, and they chatted pleasantly about Pentangle’s’ students sports programme and the upcoming Witch Ball World Cup, while Sabina Spellbinder and Amanda Honeydew conversed in loud, chiming laughter. Hecate Hardbroom, Pippa noticed - even though she definitely wasn’t looking - had sequestered herself in a corner with Esper Vespertilio and Dr. Foster, although she didn’t seem to be contributing much to their discussion, instead examining the floor thoughtfully, fidgeting with her pocket watch.

Bronwyn Blackcat was photographed, and then Sabina Spellbinder, then Jadu, then Foster, until only Pippa, Hecate, Esper and Amanda were left, the others departing in the midst of bows and handshakes and kisses from Charity. Amanda Honeydew, Pippa knew, would be left until last to ensure she got the maximum time in front of the lens, so it was no surprise when Esper was called up next, and Pippa watched the old woman settle onto the black couch in her velvety green robes with a smile. Amanda took that opportunity to accost her.

“It’s so great to finally meet you,” she declared, holding out a hand for Pippa to take, “I’m such an admirer!”

“Of mine?” Pippa asked in bewilderment.

“Oh yes,” Amanda confirmed, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “You’re the witch that’s trying to drag the rest of them out of the dark ages and into this millenium!” Pippa didn’t miss her use of the word ‘them’. “I think the work you’re doing is incredibly significant.” 

Pippa could feel Hecate Hardbroom’s beetle-black gaze on them, and she smiled brilliantly at Amanda, even though it pulled a little at the edges. “Why, thank you! I know not everyone would agree with you on that.”

“Oh,” Amanda made a dismissive noise and waved a hand as if to dispatch those opinions from the air. “People are always resistant to change. You see it in the music business all the time. If _some people_ had their way,” and Pippa was fairly sure Amanda’s voice had been raised for the benefit of the other occupants of the room, “we’d all still be stuck with the boring sort of chanting that’s been popular for a hundred years.” Startled, Pippa glanced over to where Esper Vespertilio sat, smiling blithely, seeming not to have heard. Pippa noticed Hecate’s head snap in the same direction.

“Well, I’m not sure-”

“I’m not saying there isn’t a place for it,” Amanda barreled on, unconcerned as she delicately picked at her pale, pink fingernails. “Just that people like you and I: we see which way the wind is blowing. We must all strive to save ourselves from becoming,” she levels her gaze at Esper and concludes meaningfully, “obsolete.” Amanda flashed another smile at Pippa and flipped her tawny hair over one shoulder as one of her multitude of staff called for her. “Sorry, excuse me.” She sashayed off and was immediately swamped by people holding coffee and makeup brushes and maglets. Pippa felt itchy as she watched her go.

“Miss Pentangle.”

Pippa jumped at the sudden proximity of Hecate’s voice, whipping around to face the other witch as her heart stuttered for a moment, then righted itself.

“What?” She was aware that she sounded rude, but between the fright she’d just had and every irritation of this day starting to build to a headache behind her eyes, she didn’t much care to mind her tone. The critical look Miss Hardbroom gave her in response did nothing to improve her mood.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that,” she seethed, lowering her voice so it’s barely more than a hiss, “I’m not one of your bloody students.” Hecate drew in a breath, but Pippa cut her off before she could start to speak.

“Do you know, I was dreading coming here today. Not because of the photoshoot or the magazine or anything like that, but because I knew I’d end up stuck in a room with _you._ ” Hecate’s face shuttered over, and she tilted her head to the side, as though granting Pippa leave to continue, which only inflamed Pippa more. “I don’t know _what_ your problem is with me, Miss Hardbroom, but I am sick of being the subject of your petty ripostes in the letters column. I couldn’t care less if you agree with me, or my manner of teaching, or _what_ you think of my school, but I am done being dragged over hot coals in front of the entire witching community for daring to express a _non-traditional_ opinion. You clearly have some sort of superiority complex, but I am _not_ interested in engaging in some twisted battle of wills in order to discredit me or my institution. Why don’t you stick to teaching your students your way, and let me teach mine.”

When she’d practiced this outburst in the privacy of her own head - her ‘I’ll give her a piece of my mind’ speech, one she’s been formulating for months to be honest - she’d imagined being aloof and indifferent, delivering her put-downs with the kind of icy civility she’d expected from Hardbroom in return. She had imagined being composed, rather than flustered and flushed; keeping her voice even, instead of hearing that damned, tell-tale rise at the end. She had certainly not imagined she’d be doing it in a pink, sparkly dress, but the moment had presented itself and, well - who knew if there’d be another. Her chest was heaving as she glowered as furiously as she could at her enemy, and Hecate Hardbroom stood as immobile and inexpressive as a statue in the wake of her hurricane. There was a polite cough from the direction of Pippa’s left shoulder.

“Hecate, they’d like you up there.” The calm voice of Esper Vespertilio washed over Pippa, and diffused the moment, leaving her feeling suddenly weak and a little shaky. Hecate turned without a word and marched over to the photographer, where she received her instructions with a stony face and a curt nod. Pippa flexed her fingers at her sides to try and still the trembling in her hands. There was silence for a few minutes, so all Pippa could hear was the click of the camera and the thundering in her ears as her heart-rate slowly returned to normal. Esper Vespertilio stood contentedly at her side, and watched as the photographs were taken.

“She’s not a bad person, you know.”

Pippa’s shoulders tensed, but she turned slightly so she could see the older witch more clearly. Esper wore a faint smile, and though her eyes were on Hecate, Pippa felt very closely observed.

“I didn’t say she was a bad person.”

“She’s a little brusque,” Espers face crinkled in affectionate amusement, “well, she’s _quite_ brusque, and she doesn’t often play well with others, but she’s not bad.” Esper’s gaze came to rest on Pippa, and she could see a protectiveness there, as well as kindness for herself. “I understand she’s been pulling your pigtails in this very magazine for a while.”

“Pulling my pigtails?” Pippa repeated, uncertainly.

“She never did learn how to _talk_ to people, that’s her problem. She assumes everyone is on the attack. Oh, I’m not excusing her, I know exactly what she can be like,” Esper laughed, and folded her hands into her robe, “she can be downright abominable when she wants to be. But I’ve known her since she was a little girl. Gives you a different perspective on things, you know?” Pippa was now quite sure she wasn’t following the conversation a jot, but she nodded anyway, and that seemed to satisfy the old woman. “I’ve heard a lot of what you do up at Pentangle’s is very interesting.” The non-sequitur threw Pippa, and all she could produce was a rather vague, “Oh?” Esper hummed, and turned to watch Hecate again, as she rose from her position on the couch and returned to them silently.

“Miss Pentangle? When you’re ready,” the photographer called. 

Feeling entirely discombobulated, Pippa bowed to Esper Vespertilio and made her way under the lights. In the shadowy half-light beyond, she could see Esper take Hecate’s arm, and both women bow a courteous farewell to Charity, who thanked them effusively for coming. Then they departed, and the photographer required Pippa’s attention, and so she sat for some of the longest minutes of her life while bulbs flashed and popped around her, and smiled a smile she didn’t feel a bit. When she was finished, she collected her cloak and pulled it automatically around her shoulders, feeling the tiredness of the day starting to catch up to her. She still had a long flight back. 

“Thanks so much for doing this. Get home safe,” Charity bussed a kiss to her cheek and gave her a concerned look as she mumbled her goodbyes and headed down the stairs. She chose not to speak to Amanda Honeydew before she left. Once she was outside in the fresh air, she took a moment to collect herself, and wondered which direction Esper and Hecate had flown off in. The sky was beginning to darken. She shook her head.

Pippa mounted her broom, and went home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All of the witches on the Witch Way cover are of course drawn from TWW98 (Amanda Honeydew, Bronwyn Blackcat, Jadu Wali); Weirdsister College (Josie Foster); or TWW86 (Miss Spellbinder, played by the wonderful Sabina Franklyn.)
> 
> Amanda Honeydew, of course, was the famous blonde singer all dressed in pink who arrived to take over Cackle's Academy at the behest of Mr. Hallow, and was ready to knock it down and build a 'modern witching school' instead. She bears absolutely no resemblance to anyone in the current series I can think of.


	4. The Gala

It was only a few days later that two pieces of mail crossed Pippa’s desk on the same afternoon. The first was a richly decorated invitation to the one-hundredth issue Celebratory Gala of ‘Witch Way’, to be held on the Saturday before publication. Pippa had been invited as a VIP, along with the other witches with whom she would share the cover. She thought for a while before she responded, in no rush to be in the presence of certain of her compatriots again no matter the event, but in the end she sent her acceptance, and roped Avery in as her plus-one. At the end of the day, it might look churlish if she declined. 

The second was a letter from Hecate Hardbroom.

Not a Letter-to-the-Editor this time, couched in the glossy pages between travel ads and potions recipes, but an honest-to-Mab handwritten note, with Miss Hardbroom’s name and return address in neat script on the rear of the envelope. Pippa held it in her hands and stared at it like it might bite for long minutes, before reaching for the antique letter-opener she kept in her stationery organiser, and slicing it open with a quick swipe.

**Dear Miss Pentangle** _,_ it read.

**I apologise if this letter seems out-of-the-blue, but I have been somewhat troubled by our interactions in London on Saturday last. I write in the assumption that you will have accepted Miss Crestwell’s invitation to her gala, as have myself and my friend Miss Bat, and ask that whilst there I might impose upon you for a few minutes in order (I hope) to clear the air.**

**Yours sincerely,**

**Hecate Hardbroom**

Pippa read and re-read the letter - almost painfully formal in its construction and execution - and her brow crinkled further with each pass. ‘ _I have been somewhat troubled by our interactions in London’;_ what the hell did that mean? And what did she intend by ‘ _clear the air’_? Nevermind the arbitrary reference to her date - a ‘Miss Bat’, whom Pippa was quite sure she’d never met. She examined the handwriting, spiky and precise, as if it were able to offer up any answers. Finding none, she sighed, and slipped the letter, envelope-and-all, into her desk drawer. It didn’t ask for, nor seemed to require, an answer by post. She supposed she would just have to wait and see when she got there.

The day of the gala was cloudless but dull, a bland spring breeze ruffling the trees half-heartedly as Pippa sat in front of her dressing table and secured pink diamond earrings and a matching necklace to complement the blush-pink tulle of her skirts. Her hair was half swept-up in a meticulously messy style, and her makeup had been applied flawlessly with the slightest twitch of her fingers. She sighed as she looked in the mirror. She knew she looked good. Festive, even. If only she felt the same way. She practiced a winning smile for the cameras that would unquestionably be in attendance.

_“I’m sure Miss Pentangle has had rather more cause to have her photograph taken in the course of her life than I.”_

She growled at her reflection. She’d had her picture in two, maybe three, witching magazines before the ‘Witch Way’ shoot, and always in conjunction with her school and its achievements. Of course Hecate Hardbroom would assume she was some dilettante who spent her time posing for the press based solely off of that. There was a knock at the door, and Avery poked her head in.

“Ready to go, boss?” 

The gala was to be held as a three part event: a cocktail reception for the VIPs and a sit-down dinner after, then a large party for several hundred invited guests once the tables had been cleared away. Pippa reminded herself not to overdo it on the Bellinis before dinner, lest she say something regrettable to a certain person in attendance.

“Avery, will you do something for me?”

“Bring enough money in my handbag to bail you out of a police cell if you take a swing for Hecate Hardbroom in the middle of the Shipton Hall?”

“No,” Pippa laughed, and then paused thoughtfully. “Yes. But also, promise you won’t leave me alone with that woman.”

She’d told Avery about the letter, shown it to her, and asked if she had any deeper insight into its meaning than she had been able to come up with, but Avery had been as baffled as Pippa. “I shall be ever at your side,” Avery vowed solemnly, and at the sight of Pippa’s reflected glare she added, “Promise.”

They arrived at the hall where the gala was taking place just as the sky was beginning to darken, having decided to expend the extra magical energy on a direct transfer rather than a broom ride in their evening clothes. Pippa handed over their invitation and checked their cloaks and hats, and linked her fingers with Avery’s as they crossed the threshold into the party.

The hall was beautifully decorated, with delicate floral arrangements in wrought metal stands around the walls, and in the centres of the sporadically placed poseur tables. Fairy lights were strung from the ceiling, and serving wizards in formal robes and ties glided between the guests levitating trays of champagne and nibbles. Avery expertly hooked two glasses as one drifted by, and handed a drink to Pippa.

“Get that down you.”

At the front of the room, the first thing visible from the entrance, was a blown up replica of ‘Witch Way’s hundredth cover, and Pippa found herself looking at an almost life-size facsimile of herself smiling out into the crowd next to a diffident Hecate Hardbroom. Overall, the photograph had turned out rather well, and Avery voiced her approval as Pippa heard Charity Crestwell call her name and hurry over to kiss her on each cheek.

“So good to see you,” she exclaimed, bowing to Avery as Pippa made their introductions, and then she was off and lost in the crowd again, where Pippa saw not only Amanda Honeydew, but the rest of the former Spell Girls; the national Witch Ball team; a smattering of well-regarded robe designers and journalists and other magazine editors; and the crème de la crème of fashionable witching society. She spotted Esper Vespertilio in a lavish emerald gown standing next to a bedraggled looking wizard cheerily scoffing a handful of vol-au-vents, and on her other side a tall, dark figure turned, and met Pippa’s eyes.

Hecate Hardbroom was virtually unrecognisable from the austere and forbidding figure Pippa remembered from the photoshoot. Her hair was pulled back again, this time not in a skull-squeezing bun, but a loose chignon that allowed escaped strands to flutter around a face considerably more relaxed that Pippa had seen before. She looked as though she had just been smiling at something the short, plump witch to her left had said. Winged liner accentuated her already-enormous, dark brown eyes, and her lipstick was almost as bright pink as Pippa’s dress on the magazine cover. Instead of being covered head-to-foot in heavy, constricting material, her slender arms were bare, and the black evening dress she wore hugged the slight curves of her figure to the floor, and dipped modestly but tantalisingly into a vee at her breasts. To Pippa’s shock and faint horror, her mouth went dry and a colony of bats exploded in her stomach. _Damn._ Hecate’s eyes had widened similarly at the sight of her, and she saw a blush tinge the high points of her cut-glass cheekbones, even as she felt its twin bloom across her collar. Pippa looked away quickly and downed her champagne. To her alarm, in her peripheral vision she saw Hecate excuse herself from her small group and start in her direction, and she groped blindly for Avery, who caught her flailing hand. 

“What-”

“Miss Pentangle?” Hecate’s voice cut across Avery’s, smooth and with none of the clipped enunciation Pippa had heard in their last meeting.

“Miss Hardbroom,” she responded with forced equanimity. “May I introduce my deputy, Miss Avery Heartsong.” Hecate raised her palm to her forehead and bowed as Avery did the same, and Pippa saw her eyes flicker over their joined hands for a brief moment before she straightened up.

“Well met, Miss Heartsong.”

“Well met, Miss Hardbroom. I’ve heard plenty about you.” Avery’s voice was perfectly pleasant, but Pippa noticed a flicker of uncertainty in Miss Harbroom’s expression as she inclined her head in acknowledgement. A serving wizard floated close enough to Pippa to allow her to snag another glass of champagne. Avery squeezed her hand, half-assurance, half-warning.

“Miss Pentangle, I-”

“And who are you here with?” Pippa enquired, interrupting Hecate impenitently. She squinted and realised she recognised the diminutive witch wearing a rich purple dress whom Hecate had been talking to moments ago. “Is that Ada?”

“Oh,” Hecate said, nonplussed, as she followed the direction of Pippa’s gaze. “Yes. I invited Miss Cackle as my plus-one.”

“I thought you were bringing a Miss Bat?” Pippa’s curiosity momentarily overrode her intention to appear indifferent and aloof.

“Miss Bat?” Hecate repeated, puzzled. “Well yes, Miss Bat is- ah, I’m sorry, I see where the confusion is. Esper Vespertilio.”

“Esper Vespertilio?”

“Is Miss Bat,” Hecate explained, patiently. “Gwenhwÿfar Bat. Esper Vespertilio is her stage name. She generally goes by Gwen.”

“And Vespertilio is a genus of bat!” Avery declared triumphantly, like someone unlocking a centuries old riddle. “I get it!” Hecate smiled amusedly at her, and Pippa took another swallow of champagne.

“Hello, Miss Pentangle!” One of the subjects of their conversation, Ada Cackle, ambled up to their group and smiled widely at all of them. “Miss Heartsong. How are you both?” Pippa was sure she didn’t mistake the flash of frustration that crossed Hecate Hardbroom’s features, but it was quickly schooled back into a neutral mask as Pippa, Avery, and Ada bowed to one another and exchanged greetings. The three witches chatted genially enough about their schools, and teaching, and the event in general for a while, before Jadu Wali brought her vice-captain Ruby Cherrytree over to be introduced to Pippa, and Ada steered Hecate - who had been mostly silent throughout the conversation - away in the direction of a gaggle of women around Bronwyn Blackcat, who Ada insisted she simply must speak to while she had the opportunity. Hecate gave a backwards glance at Pippa as she was led away; Pippa pretended not to notice.

Before long they were called for dinner, and the poseur tables melted away to be replaced with lusciously set and decorated round dining tables. At this point, Pippa wasn’t even surprised to find that she, Esper, and Hecate were all seated at the same one. A quick glance around revealed the Witch Ball team at one table, the magazine editors and journalists at another, the big entertainment names all together, and she realised that - disregarding normal protocol about enforced mingling - Charity had tabled them with like-minded professionals. She, apparently, was with the Academics; she slid into her seat and watched as Esper and her escort sat next to her and Avery, followed by Ada and Hecate. Dr. Foster and a tanned, blond wizard she introduced as her son were next to join them, and then a few other guests whose names Pippa learned and then almost instantly forgot. She was better at faces, anyway. 

“Pippa, this is my husband, Algernon Rowan-Webb,” Esper-Gwen announced, and the bedraggled wizard beamed at her through his beard. Pippa smiled back, and raised her glass in salute, saying “Nice to meet you,” before taking a sip. Algernon copied the gesture with a glass full of a murky green liquid Pippa couldn’t identify.

“Algie was a frog for thirty years,” Gwen imparted, casually, and Pippa heard Hecate Hardbroom snort as Pippa coughed on her champagne. There were bubbles up her nose.

“Really?” Avery sounded as if this was a perfectly normal conversation starter. “How fascinating!”

“Not really,” Algernon replied soulfully. “It was mostly eating flies and hiding from seagulls.”

The conversation around the table was airily agreeable throughout the duration of the dinner, although Pippa suspected she was rather more reserved than she ordinarily would have been, given the amount of times Avery nudged her or kicked her foot to check she was alright. Hecate, too, was quiet, pushing food around her plate more than she ate, and only really smiling or nodding to agree with something Ada said, or answer a question that was put to her. At one point, she and Dr. Foster got into quite a lively debate about the Foster’s Effect and how it interacted with multiple casting in a controlled environment, and that was as animated as Pippa saw her. She couldn’t help but watch her, though, as she shook her dark head or gestured gracefully with her pale hands, and even laughed occasionally when Foster’s son tried to offer an opinion on the subject which was usually quickly dismissed by his mother. Wizards, Dr. Foster proclaimed, would shoot off multiple spells at one time any chance they got, just because the effect was pretty, and would doom them all for the aesthetic; it was her theory on what had sunk Atlantis. Serving wizards kept appearing to top up wine-glasses. Pippa talked with Gwen and Algernon and Ada, and was drawn into conversation with some of the other table guests, but she and Hecate avoided saying a word to one another while the soup was served, and then the main course, and eventually the dessert. Every so often, Pippa would glance in her direction and catch her looking away, as if discovered. But then, every so often, Hecate would do the same. Neither had yet mentioned the letter.

The sweets arrived on heavily-laden trays, great slabs of cheesecake with ice-cream that Ada cooed at as they were set in front of the diners. Pippa, who had never met a dessert she didn’t like, speared hers with a fork immediately and groaned in delight as the flavour burst tart and creamy across her tongue. Avery laughed out loud; Hecate looked appalled. There was silence for a few moments as everyone tucked in, and Pippa cleared her plate faster than most. Despite being pleasantly full, she tried to glance around surreptitiously to see if there was any more on offer. Her gaze alighted on Avery’s plate.

“Don’t even think about it,” her deputy warned.

There was a ripple of laughter around the table, but beneath it Pippa heard Hecate quietly offer, “Feel free to have mine, if you like.” The other woman’s plate was untouched, and she pushed it in Pippa’s direction. Pippa was faced with a conundrum. She wasn’t sure if this was some sort of peace offering, or a veiled comment on her evident enthusiasm for sweet things. It could be either an olive branch or an insult; but on the other hand, it was definitely a cake. She hesitated fractionally too long, and Algernon Rowan-Webb swooped in. 

“Well, if she doesn’t want it…”

Hecate sat back, looking a little crestfallen, avoiding Pippa’s eyes. She felt a sharp stab of guilt. Peace offering, then. Maybe that’s what she had meant by ‘clear the air’. In the next moment, Pippa reminded herself that it wasn’t _her_ fault the air needed clearing in the first place, and she sniffed deflectively. Trays of tea and coffee were circulating now, and the table lapsed into amiable quiet, broken only by requests to pass the milk and sugar. Pippa heaped three deliberate spoonfuls into her black coffee, watching Hecate from under her lashes as she did, but the other woman didn’t look her way - just stirred her own tea and sipped at it contemplatively.

Not long afterwards, a bell chimed, and everyone abandoned the tables as they were dissolved away into the air, leaving a large, clear dance floor. Some of the poseur tables appeared around the edges again, and Pippa watched as a four-piece band swiftly set themselves up in a corner.

“Do you think they’ll do a waltz?” Gwen asked dreamily, and Pippa watched one of the wizards pluck the strings of his electric guitar and didn’t have the heart to say it was probably unlikely.

The music, when it started, was surprisingly unobtrusive and slow-tempoed, and the hall began to fill up with the rest of the guests for the evening: minor celebrities, and ‘Witch Way’ staff’s families, and people who had paid for tickets in the hope of mingling with the likes of Jadu and Sabina and Amanda. A long cocktail bar had appeared against the back wall, busily staffed by witches and wizards doing quite incredible things with Boston shakers. Pippa had just secured herself a perfectly mixed Tom Collins, when a presence at her elbow made itself known. Hecate was holding a half-full glass of merlot, and wearing a slightly hunted expression.

“Miss Pentangle,” she began, voice soft enough that Pippa had to strain to hear her over the music. “I was hoping...I might have a word.”


	5. The Parley

It took a few moments of weaving through the crowd on Hecate’s heels before Pippa found herself in a small antechamber that looked as if it were mainly used for storing broomsticks for guests. She followed Hecate in, and watched as she closed over the door behind them, leaving it open a sliver, for which Pippa was grateful. She felt unaccountably nervous as it was. She took a fortifying sip of her cocktail, and tried to project a confident air. Hecate took a few moments to collect her thoughts, looking into the depths of her wine glass, and wet her lips before she began.

“I understand I owe you something of an apology,” she began, curtly, and Pippa bristled.

“You ‘understand’ you owe me an apology?”

Hecate looked up, forehead creasing. “Yes. I’ve been told my behaviour towards you may have been subject to...misinterpretation.” Pippa huffed incredulously , tipping her head back to start sightlessly at the ceiling while she fought the urge to chuck her drink over the other witch.

“Really. And who exactly told you that?”

“Miss Bat,” Hecate replied, frankly.

“So Miss Bat told you you had to come and say sorry to me like a naughty child, is that it?” When Pippa returned her glare to Hecate’s level, the woman was frowning, puzzled. 

“No, that’s not-”

“Because of a ‘misinterpretation’? You think I misinterpreted your-... your _attacks_ on me these past few years?”

“I haven’t been attacking you…” Hecate began defensively, but Pippa laughed again, in disbelief.

“Oh, of course not! I’ve just been taking it all the wrong way, I suppose? It’s my fault, is it? Is that what you brought me here to say?”

“I brought you here to apologise!”

“I don’t _need_ your apology,” Pippa fumed, and her knuckles tightened around the stem of her glass. “I didn’t ask for it. And I certainly didn’t ask _Miss Bat_ to tell you I wanted one.” She whirled around and reached for the doorknob, ready to depart in a cloud of self-indignant fury when a hand landed on her arm to arrest her.

“Miss Pentangle! Pippa. Please.”

She whipped back around and glared at Hecate, who was standing at her back now, looking frustrated and bewildered and angry. Not at Pippa, though, Pippa realised with a clarity that stopped her shaking Hecate off immediately and storming out, but with herself. Her mouth formed soundless words, and it took a few attempts before she finally managed, “I’m sorry. I’m- I’m not very good at this.”

“Apologies? I’d noticed.” Pippa’s voice was venomous.

“Talking to people,” Hecate corrected her, ruefully. “Communication in general, really. I’m sure you’d noticed that as well.” She dropped her hand from Pippa’s arm and took a few steps back, allowing her space to make her escape now, if she wanted to. Pippa very seriously considered it, but her feet remained rooted to the floor, and her chest rose and fell heavily with her accelerated breathing. They both took a moment to regroup, Pippa finishing her Tom Collins and vanishing the glass absently, as Hecate set what was left of her wine down on a scratched sideboard beside old books of raffle tickets. They each took a deep breath.

“I am sorry,” Hecate began haltingly - not, Pippa could tell, because she didn’t want to say the words, but because she was measuring each of them carefully before she released them into the air, “that the correspondence I sent you via the magazine could be so easily interpreted as an open assault on you, and your school. It was...not the spirit in which I intended it.” 

“‘Not the spirit in which you intended it’?” Pippa couldn’t abstain from the derision that coloured her tone. “Are you serious? You called my school a ‘vanity-project’; you said I was ‘ridiculous’ and ‘dangerous’. In what manner _did_ you intend it, Miss Hardbroom?”

“I suppose I thought-”

“Thought what, exactly?”

Hecate sighed, and leaned back against the sideboard, seeming to deflate a little as she shrugged in self-deprecation.

“I suppose I thought getting a rise out of you was the best way to keep getting a response.”

_She’s been pulling your pigtails in this very magazine for a while._

Pippa was momentarily speechless. Momentarily.

“Are you meaning to tell me,” she seethed, “that all of this - all the arguments and the finger-pointing and the snide remarks - have all been for _attention?_ ”

A blush had crawled up Hecate’s chest and shoulders, and was burning in her cheeks as she nodded stiffly and folded her arms. “Yes. A little.”

“That’s...that’s....” Pippa reached for a word and found several, but finally settled on, “ _ridiculous!_ ” She was so angry she was glad she’d gotten rid of her glass, because it would doubtless have splintered into a million pieces by now. Hecate however, was nodding her agreement, still blushing furiously. Pippa told herself she was too irate to notice that the flush of colour was rather attractive. 

“I know, I know. It’s just I thought...well, I didn’t realise you were taking me so much at my word. I enjoyed the debate, you see, and I assumed you did too. When you kept writing back, and throwing rejoinders at me, and calling me ‘intractable’ and stuck-in-my-ways, it turned into a sort of game, I suppose. My mistake was that I thought we were both playing.” She held up a hand, anticipating Pippa’s words. “My fault, Miss Pentangle. Entirely.”

Pippa said nothing, just stared at the contrite witch in outraged astonishment. Of all the conversations she had been prepared to have with Hecate Hardbroom, this was not, she had to admit, on the list. Hecate evidently took her silence as tacit permission to continue.

“I’m often told, by my colleagues in particular, that my manner of speaking to people leaves something to be desired. I am aware I can be...confrontational, especially with strangers. Certainly, when I first responded to one of your letters to the magazine, I _was_ attempting to disparage you. I have very strong feelings about the wisdom of mixing Magical and Non-Magical practices, which I won’t burden you with.” Her mouth lifted crookedly at one side. “When you replied with equal vehemence, and told me to mind my own business, I saw it as a challenge. By the time several months had gone by I suppose- I suppose I chalked it up to a kind of flyting.”

“ _Flirting_?”

“Flyting,” Hecate corrected her hastily, wide-eyed. “You know - a battle of wits.” And of course, Pippa thought, of course a witch as old-fashioned and versed in tradition as Hecate Hardbroom would invoke an obsolete, five-hundred year old practice of throwing public barbs at one another as the justification for their ongoing quarrel. She nearly laughed.

“Flyting.”

In a bit of a daze, she pushed herself up to sit on the battered sideboard beside where Hecate stood, her generous skirts blooming around her legs, and stared at the assorted broomsticks for a few moments while she sorted through her thoughts. A cursory look at Hecate told her the other woman was quite sincere, she looked equally sheepish and chagrined, and seemed to be finding the floor eminently fascinating. Pippa supposed she _had_ tossed back some equally provocative insults in her own letters; she had definitely accused Hecate of lacking foresight and flexibility, and she may have made an unflattering comparison or two between her and the crones from ‘Macbeth’. Eventually, hesitantly, she spoke:

“You never went after anyone else; you know, Amulet’s or Amethyst’s or anything, whenever they suggested some new technique or spell theory?”

Hecate snorted, “I wouldn’t waste my time arguing with the instructors from Amulet’s or Amethyst's. Those witches don’t know one end of a cauldron from another.”

Pippa glanced sidelong at her, curious despite herself.

“But you think I do?”

“I know you do,” Hecate affirmed, simply. “I’ve looked at some of your work into the various proposed applications of Chanting. It’s all excellently researched and convincingly presented.”

Pippa was now practically agape. “So you don’t think it’s all ‘ludicrous nonsense’?”

“Oh no, it absolutely is,” Hecate responded, turning to her, and even though she still looked a little uncertain, there was gleam in her dark eyes. “It’s just _well-researched and presented_ nonsense.” 

Pippa felt a flare of umbrage again, until she expanded,

“Of course, that is merely my opinion. I think there are many things in the teaching of witchcraft that you and I must be content to disagree on, Miss Pentangle.” She looked at Pippa, seriously. “That does not mean that I do not respect you as an educator, or that I don’t see the value in your institution, despite my more...insistently authored claims to the contrary.”

“I can’t say I felt very respected,” Pippa admitted, quietly.

“No,” Hecate accepted. “And I am, truly, sorry.”

There was another slight pause, and Pippa found herself speaking quite without meaning to. “You’re not the only one who’s taken a swipe and me and my school over the years, you know. Sometimes it feels like all I do is defend our right to exist as part of the Magical community.” Hecate was watching her intently now, and Pippa shifted, kicking her heels against the wood of her perch. “And it’s stopped bothering me, really it has. For the most part anyway. I just assume the people who are against us are incapable of bothering to understand what Pentangle’s is trying to do. They don’t know enough about the school system, or the state of magic in the country and how it’s affecting our teaching practices, or our students. You on the other hand-” she looked at Hecate searchingly, “you _do._ I think that might be why it stung so much. You know the challenges we’re all facing. Your work is important to the foundations of what we’re teaching young witches in all our academies. You have all these books and articles that we’re all looking at when we’re developing our materials, and I- I think I could bear being derided by people who haven’t got the brains to see why we need to adapt, but not by someone whose work I valued.” Pippa stared somewhere in the direction of her knees, hidden behind folds of pink tulle. 

“Oh.”

Pippa heard Hecate draw a breath through her nose, and suddenly the other witch had levered herself up to sit next to her and folded her hands in her lap, where she studied her nails and admitted,

“Things are changing. It worries me. I only know one tune, Miss Pentangle, and I’m not sure I can dance to any other.” It’s almost shockingly vulnerable, and Pippa had to fight the urge to reach across and take her hands in her own.

“Tradition is still important. No-one's saying we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just that maybe we have to accept that some things will need to change alongside the way we’ve always done things. Make some adjustments, that’s all. There’s room for Potions _and_ Chanting in the laboratory, if you ask me.” Hecate looked at her out of the corner of her eye.

“And witches wearing pink?”

Pippa drew herself up in mock aggravation, “Excuse _me,_ I look fantastic in pink.” Hecate’s smile was small but genuine.

“I’m not inclined to disagree.”

“Well, there’s a first.”

They sat for a few more minutes, and just as it threatened to turn awkward again, Pippa couldn’t help but ask,

“Did Miss Bat really tell you to come and apologise to me?”

Hecate laughed, and Pippa turned to look at her, a half-smile quirking her lips. “Not exactly,” Hecate explained, flushing a little as she obviously remembered the conversation, “but she did notice the tension between us at that dreadful photoshoot, and while we were there Josie Foster told her about the letters. Turned out she hadn’t even seen them. She skips the letters page and goes straight for the crossword. When we got back to Cackle’s she insisted I show them to her, and let me tell you, my ears were ringing for the rest of the night.”

Pippa couldn't help the amused snort she released at the image of the fierce and forbidding Hecate Hardbroom being given the dressing down of her life by tiny Esper Vespertilio, but Hecate wasn’t quite finished:

“That, in addition to our... _encounter_ at the studio, when you said you’d been dreading being stuck in a room with me-” Hecate winced, and Pippa remembers her carefully blank face as she hurled the recrimination at her, “all led me to realise that I had overstepped the mark quite spectacularly.”

Pippa swallowed. “You hurt my feelings,” she confessed, softly. Hecate nodded, regretfully.

“It’s not an excuse, but I honestly didn’t mean to.”

There was another silence, while the moment settled, and Pippa felt something unfurl within her that she hadn’t even realised had been tightly wound all day. She sighed, risked a glance at her companion, and made a decision. She nudged Hecate lightly with her shoulder. 

“Oi. Want to go and get plastered?” 

Hecate blinked at her.

“Abso _lute_ ly.”

***

“Do you really think I’m dangerous?”

“Sorry?”

“Dangerous,” Pippa repeated, as she handed over another glass of Merlot and waved her own Moscow Mule in the air. “You’re always saying I’m ‘dangerous’ in your letters. Do you really think that?”

Hecate looked down at the wine she’d just been given - the third Pippa had ordered for her - and replied, “I’m starting to believe it ever more thoroughly.”

Pippa took a good swallow of her drink, and beamed. Since emerging from the broom cupboard, she’d felt a lightness of spirit that was only exacerbated by the steady flow of- well, light spirits. She wasn’t drunk, but wasn’t exactly sober either; she occupied that enjoyable half-way place where everyone was her new best friend, and everything was prodigiously lovely. Hecate was looking at her with some amusement.

“I like your dress, by the way,” Pippa declared. “And your hair. You looked so uncomfortable and constricted at the photoshoot.” She used her glass to gesture at the enormous replica of the cover on its easel. Hecate wrinkled her nose at it. 

“That’s what I always look like.”

“Well, tonight you look great.” Hecate smiled at her, shy but pleased. “And you have really nice eyes.”

Merlin. Maybe she was drunker than she thought. Hecate just laughed. 

“I’ll take your word for it.”

Pippa sipped her drink to cover her embarrassment for a moment, and then rallied. “I didn’t think you looked too impressed with me when I turned up for the photograph.” Hecate looked genuinely surprised.

“Really?”

“When I took off my cloak and you saw my dress was pink, I thought you were going to combust.”

“Oh,” Hecate went scarlet across her cheekbones. “No. I- I actually thought it suited you rather well.” 

“Really?” Pippa asked, delightedly. “I thought I could practically hear you composing a letter to Charity in your head.” She cleared her throat and took on a somber expression, trying to imbue her voice with as much Hecate-esque disdain as she could muster. “‘ _Dear Madam, it was with some resignation that I noted the flagrant disregard of appropriate witching regalia by Miss Pentangle at our recent photoshoot. Far from observing a suitable dress code, Miss Pentangle arrived in attire more akin to a bedazzled flamingo…’”_

Hecate was laughing openly, cringing at Pippa’s impersonation, and Pippa couldn’t fail to note how pretty she was when she laughed. 

“Ooft,” Hecat acknowledged, taking a sip of her wine. “I probably would have as well, just to wind you up.” 

“And I’d have written back saying you looked like a taxidermied raven,” Pippa declared cheerfully, as Hecate glowered playfully at her. A thought occurred to her, and before she could second-guess herself she asked, “What did you mean about me getting my photograph taken?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You said ‘I’m sure Miss Pentangle has more reason to get her photograph taken than I do’, or something like that. What did you mean?”

Hecate looked a little flustered. “Oh. Just that you undoubtedly take a good photograph. I hate being in front of a camera, I always end up looking…” she glanced back towards the cover display, “...like that.” She shifted thoughtfully. “Besides which, you _go_ to things. I’d seen pictures of you at conferences and beside articles and the like. I don’t venture out beyond Cackle’s very often, and everyone there is intimately acquainted with my face; I’m sure they’d prefer to see it a great deal _less_ often.” Her tone was light and self-deprecating, but there was something behind her words Pippa couldn’t quite place. 

“You came to this, though?”

“It’s not so bad when Gwen and Ada and Algernon are here,” Hecate shrugged. “I feel like I’ve got...what’s the word? Backup. In case I say anything that gets me into trouble.” She looked meaningfully at Pippa over the rim of her wine glass as she took another mouthful. Aware that they were skirting something neither was particularly keen to explore right now, Pippa glanced out over the crowd until she spotted Esper Vespertilio. 

“Miss Bat clearly cares for you a great deal.”

Hecate followed her gaze and smiled fondly. “She’s known me since I was child, since well before I started teaching at Cackle’s. She’s an old friend of the family; I’ve always rather looked up to her. She was so excited about getting on the cover of ‘Witch Way’.”

Pippa smiled, “Probably made all the better by having you there.” Hecate nodded thoughtfully.

“She was very keen to meet you, as well,” she told Pippa, who flushed with pleasure. Esper Vespertilio was a chanting icon, after all. “She likes to keep up to date with what’s happening in your Chanting department.”

“Really?”

“Mmmm.”

“She did say she’d heard interesting things about us,” Pippa remembered, and Hecate’s blush - which had dulled to a faint pink in the intervening minutes - flared on her cheeks again, and Pippa didn’t have to ask where Esper had heard them from. Hecate swallowed some wine. 

“Right. She was somewhat less impressed with Miss Honeydew.” At the mention of the singer’s name, Hecate’s voice veered back into contemptuous territory. Pippa spotted Amanda, dressed in an expensively revealing gold gown, sparkling in the centre of a group of enraptured followers.

“No,” she agreed, turning her glass in her hands as she remembered the unpleasant feeling of being unwillingly brought into Amanda’s confidence. “I can’t say I was, either.” Hecate looked at her, one eyebrow raised, and Pippa recalled that she had also heard Honeydew’s arrogant dismissal of Esper’s style of chanting. “I found her a bit...condescending.” Hecate nodded her approval.

“Indeed.”

“Pippa!” Both witches turned simultaneously to see a frazzled-looking Avery Heartsong emerge from the crowd at Pippa’s elbow. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” she said, pointedly. Hecate graciously put some space between them, and began idly people-watching. “Sorry,” Avery hissed so the other witch wouldn’t hear. “You disappeared!”

“Oh!” Pippa belatedly recalled her plea to her deputy before they’d arrived here tonight. “No! It’s fine. We’re friends now!” Avery’s expression at this announcement was that of the permanently long-suffering.

“What?”

“We talked it out. She apologised; turned out it was all a bit of a misunderstanding. She’s actually alright when you get to know her.” Pippa grinned. Avery visibly counted to ten in her head.

“So, you don’t need me to rescue you?”

“No, not really.”

“Fine.” Avery made a gesture at one of the bar-witches, who appeared with a glass of champagne which Avery took determinedly. “In that case, I will be over there,” she pointed in the direction of the Witch Ball squad, “chatting up their centre-forward. Come and find me when it’s time to go home.” Pippa leaned across and kissed her affectionately on the cheek. Avery just shook her head in mild forbearance, and disappeared back into the noisy room. Pippa turned back to catch Hecate watching her go.

“She was just checking in with me.”

“Making sure you hadn’t scratched my eyes out, or vice versa?” Hecate’s voice was wine-warmed, and her eyes crinkled as she asked, but there was a hesitancy in her voice that she was doing her best to hide. Pippa shrugged.

“I may have told her to be prepared to act as a referee, just in case.” Hecate’s lips twitched, and Pippa watched as her gaze flickered once again to the back of Avery’s head.

“Are you and she…?”

“Avery? Oh, no.” It was suddenly very important for Pippa to be clear. “Just friends. Good friends. We work very well together. Like you and Ada, I imagine?” What had possessed her to say that? But Hecate looked happily assuaged, and the bats in Pippa’s stomach made their presence known yet again.

“Right. Okay.” Before Pippa had a second to evaluate that response, Hecate downed the rest of her Merlot and waved her glass in Pippa’s direction. “Another?” Pippa knew she absolutely, definitely, decidedly shouldn’t.

“Sure,” Pippa said.

***

“Right, you: home.” 

It was some considerable time later that Avery’s voice brought Pippa out of a reverie, and she looked up to see her friend’s amused face hovering a foot away from where she had been leaning on the bar, wool-gathering. Hecate had been purloined for a few moments by Sabina Spellbinder. Up until then, they had been talking aimlessly about whatever came into their heads, and Pippa had found Hecate remarkably easy and enjoyable to converse with, once they’d got started.

“Hmm?”

“Home, with me; before you end up going home with someone else, and have to explain yourself to Ada Cackle in the morning.” Pippa’s face flamed. 

“I wasn’t planning…!”

Avery was laughing at her, even as Pippa checked around quickly to make sure they hadn’t been overheard.

“You’ve been making eyes at her for _hours_ , Pip. I’m fairly sure you forgot there were other people here. But it is getting on a bit; we should head back to Pentangle’s before it gets much later.” Avery checked her watch and corrected herself, “Earlier, even.” A cursory glance around showed that much of the room had emptied, although there was still a respectable number of gala-goers in attendance. Hecate had been released by Miss Spellbinder, but was nodding at something Gwen was saying to her, and a few seconds later she made her way over to where Pippa and Avery were standing.

“I think we’re going have to be off,” she told them, rather reluctantly. 

“Us too,” Pippa confirmed. “Avery’s just come to give me my three-minute warning.”

“I’ll get the cloaks,” Avery offered, throwing a look at Pippa that Pippa immediately decided Hecate hadn’t seen, for the sake of her own sanity. Avery disappeared towards the entrance to the hall, on the heels of the Cackle's contingent, who were chatting blithely and paying their wayward deputy no mind. Pippa and Hecate trailed a few feet behind, Pippa’s mind working overtime as she weighed up the current balance between her common-sense and her dutch-courage. Just before they reached the front of the hall, Hecate said, “Miss Pentangle-”

Without waiting for her to finish, Pippa grabbed Hecate’s elbow and drew her behind the oversized cover photograph, where they were effectively shielded from the rest of the room. Courage it was then. Hecate’s eyes widened in surprise, but Pippa merely folded her hands in front of her and waited patiently for her to continue. Hecate drew a breath.

“I wanted to thank you, for listening to me this evening. You didn’t have to. Thank you for letting me clear the air.” She peered up at Pippa from under her lashes, and Pippa thought again that she really did have the most beautiful eyes. She quickly conjured a piece of paper and a pen from the air, and scribbled down a string of symbols which she handed to Hecate before her daring wore off. 

“Here.” 

Hecate looked at the note, and then at her, and Pippa explained, “It’s my mirror at Pentangle’s. So you don’t have to write any more bloody letters to get my attention. You can just call me, instead.” Hecate looked floored for a moment, and then smiled: self-conscious, but charmingly bright.

“I will.”

“Good,” Pippa confirmed, and kissed her.

She felt Hecate stiffen in shock for a half a second - long enough for her to starting wondering about how she was going to explain the ensuing scene to Charity: _I was a bit tipsy and she’s just really beautiful_ \- before Hecate’s hands came up to clasp Pippa’s waist and she returned the kiss eagerly. Pippa parted her lips with a sigh, and felt Hecate draw her tightly against her, Pippa’s fingers slipping against the black velvet straps of her dress as she slid them up to cradle Hecate’s jaw. It could only have lasted a few seconds, but when they drew apart fractionally Pippa felt as though she’d been starved for air. Hecate made a small noise in the back of her throat, and Pippa’s eyes fluttered open. Hecate looked perfectly heavenly. She leaned forward and pressed her lips to hers again, before she pulled back and let Hecate’s arms drop from around her waist. They stared at each other in charged silence for a moment until one of them - and Pippa could never be sure which - started to laugh, and the other followed helplessly.

“Hecate?” Pippa heard Ada Cackle’s voice call as they giggled like a couple of schoolgirls in the shadows, and she beamed at Hecate, who gave her a smaller but equally beatific grin back. 

“Call me,” Pippa instructed, firmly, reaching out to tuck a strand of Hecate’s wayward hair behind her ear.

“I will,” Hecate assured her again. She caught Pippa’s hand as she withdrew it from her hair, and pressed a soft kiss to the back of it. Pippa nearly melted on the spot.

By the time they emerged from behind the portrait and ambled into the foyer, Avery had both hers and Pippa’s cloaks at the ready, and the Cackle’s staff were bundled up in cloaks and hats. They had transferred down as well, and the six of them made their way outdoors and made a round of polite goodbyes. 

“I hope to see you again soon, Miss Pentangle,” Gwen Bat intoned cheerfully, without a hint of implication that somehow made it even more evident that she knew exactly what had held Pippa and Hecate up. Pippa hugged the old woman, and whispered conspiratorially, “We’ll see.”

With final waves and calls of ‘safe travels’, the two groups separated, and Avery lifted her hand to begin the transfer spell. The last thing Pippa saw before she dematerialised was Hecate, drifting into dark smoke in the night.


	6. The Epilogue

**Letters to the Editor  
Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #112**

**Dear Madam,**

**It was with frank astonishment that I read Miss Pentangle’s previous letter to your magazine, regarding her proposed ‘Modern Magical Workshops’ for all academic institutions next term, including, I might point out,** **_wizarding_ ** **schools. Not content with ‘co-educating’ children at her own facility, Miss Pentangle suggests that we gather young witches and wizards from various schools and colleges together in order to better disseminate this perfidious absurdity. I should be flabbergasted if Cackle’s Academy agrees to participate in these proposed ‘work-shops’.**

**Yours Faithfully,**

**H. Hardbroom.**

Pippa read the letters page languidly, curled on her bed with a mug of hot, sweet tea. She snorted, and rolled her eyes, as she perused the latest anti-modern missive. Well, at least ‘absurd’ was slightly less inflammatory than ‘dangerous’, although she found she rather missed being classed as a serious menace to witching society. She set the magazine down at her feet, and reached idly for her maglet, scrolling to the first name on her recent contacts list.

_‘Perfidious absurdity’? Really?_

**I considered ‘ludicrous folly’, but I thought I’d save that for a follow-up.**

Pippa laughed, and flopped back against her pillows, scribbling a reply on her screen in her expressive, looping handwriting.

_How dare you call into question my evil plans for bringing down traditional witchery. I will be composing something devastatingly witty in indictment of your character in reply._

**You’d better get started then. You’ve only got a month to come up with something.**

_Ha-ha._ Pippa grinned as she wound some hair carelessly around her index finger, and balanced her maglet on her knee. The first months of her and Hecate’s delicate courtship had seen them tentatively establishing the boundaries of their bickering, as they still clashed at times over their professional manners and methodologies. Hecate had been terribly careful not to risk injuring Pippa’s feelings again, worried about misstepping and upsetting this thing blossoming between them, and eventually Pippa had sat her down and confessed that she quite missed the cut-and-thrust of their previous debate. She understood Hecate an awful lot better now, and Hecate understood her, and perhaps if they weren’t _quite_ as cavalier with their opinions, and not _just_ as quick to take things personally, they could still enjoy a good battle of wills, both in print and in person. Pippa had written a cheeky letter rebutting an article of Hecate’s the next week, Hecate had feigned horror, and suddenly they were off again, only this time they could tease each other over the mirror when the latest issue dropped onto their desks. 

Indeed, the last few months had been a flurry of mirror-calls and maglet messages, quick trips up to Cackle’s or down to Pentangle’s, weekends away when work was quiet for both of them. Of all the manners in which she could have anticipated this feud between her and Hecate Hardbroom turning out, this was definitely the way Pippa had least expected.

Frankly, it’s been wonderful.

_You_ _know_ _Ada’s already booked me in to do some workshops for Cackle’s, don’t you?_

**Yes, she mentioned it. Asked how I’d feel about you coming and hanging around for a week, corrupting my students.**

_And what did you say?_

**That I’d seen quite enough of you over the holidays.**

_Liar._ She sipped at her tea while she waited for a reply. She wasn’t waiting long.

**Perhaps.**

Pippa smiled to herself, a warm feeling settling in her chest. She might be dreadful at admitting it, but she knew Hecate missed her just as much as she missed Hecate, especially in the wake of their two deceptively domestic weeks at her home over the school break. They’d spent most of their days lying around her living room or garden, or sharing her big, comfortable bed. Although they’d venture out occasionally, Pippa had discovered that Hecate preferred to be somewhere quiet, with few people - despite the way she had poked fun at herself at the gala for not attending events without supervision, Pippa quickly realised that Hecate could find interacting with the outside world overwhelming. It must have taken a herculean effort for her to attend the ‘Witch Way’ gala, and the fact she’d done it largely to apologise to her brought a lump to Pippa’s throat if she thought about it too closely. So they stayed happily ensconced indoors; she could still picture Hecate: oversized black knit jumper, hair loose over her shoulders, curled up on Pippa’s window seat and making lazy annotations in all her Potions books. “That’s wrong. And that. And I don’t even know why you’d bother reading _this,_ ” until Pippa had stolen the books from her hands and stolen her breath in the next moment. 

_You’ll not be wanting me up this weekend then?_ she teased knowing immediately that Hecate would protest. She did, of course.

**Well, let’s not be too hasty. We still have a game of chess to finish off, after all.**

_Have you found all the pieces yet?_

**I think it’s easier if I just buy a new chessboard.**

Pippa grinned, remembering her last visit to Cackle’s and their abortive match, when the set had been accidentally overturned in their distraction. It was probably for the best. Merlin knew where half those pawns had ended up. She closed her eyes and stretched, feeling a satisfied sort of sleepiness wash over her. It was getting late, and while she had an easy morning ahead of her, she knew Hecate had classes.

_I’ll see you on Saturday then, darling. Goodnight._

**Goodnight.**

_I love you._

**I love you, too.**

Her owl hooted softly from the window sill, announcing his departure, and she watched him sail off into the dark, white wings beating against the sky. She thought of Hecate - miles away in her own rooms with the company of her fire and familiar - and sighed, content. She reached across to her nightstand to pluck a sheaf of paper and a pen from her notepad, and her eyes lingered on a framed photograph, taken a few months ago, of her and Hecate, standing close together, smiling and happy and relaxed. She’d finally convinced her she wasn’t so bad in front of a camera after all.

She grinned, considered for a few moments, and then she began to write:

_Letters to the Editor_   
_Witch Way Magazine  
Issue #113_

_Dear Madam...._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks very much for all your lovely comments! I appreciate them more than you know! Stay safe and healthy everyone. <3


End file.
